by Kathryn Magura Krieger and Camille Perlman
"WHY
have we been doing it this way for so many years?” This is the question heard around the campus world for many months now. Campus housing departments have been making changes at lightning speed over the past year, and, for many, there was a surprise in realizing that a reactionary plan could become an innovative solution for the future.
Move-in, signing out room keys, and roommate assignments are just a few processes that drastically changed. And, in many instances, readjusting or reimagining these processes not only worked better for staff, but also for students and in some cases parents. Whether or not many of these changes become the new standard operating procedure remains up in the air as time moves on and environments settle. How will new concerns balance with core values, such as face-to-face interaction? One thing that is certain, though, is that going into the future there will be less fear about adapting processes to the virtual space and more of an overall willingness to change, adjust, or reimagine as needed.
At the beginning of 2021, the Talking Stick called on housing professionals to comment on how their business operations and processes had changed or had been reimagined in the past year. As we know, every facet of student housing was affected. Many of these changes are temporary, but many will remain as an innovative process that will be woven into the new normal.
When the impacts of the pandemic first hit in March 2020, many campuses were already in full swing preparing for the next academic year. Housing contracts had been vetted through legal counsel, and in some cases current and new students were already in the process of selecting rooms for the fall. As AJ Place, associate dean of student life at Middlebury College, explains, “For Fall 2020 housing we had to push all our housing selection processes back to the summer (normally this would happen in the spring) as we needed to wait to receive more information about what fall would look like and which students were deciding to attend or go remote or take a leave of absence.”
In addition to pushing processes out to later in the summer, campuses reevaluated the inventory of spaces they would be using in the fall. Tricia Rabel, executive director of housing and residence life at Central Washington University, comments, “Our Board of Trustees only permitted certain living arrangements for 2020-21, drastically reducing our occupancy (single rooms with attached baths, limited suites, some singles with assigned and keyed community baths, no student sharing a bathroom with more than four people).” De-densifying campus housing was common. “We spread students throughout our residence halls. We offered additional double-as-singles and room buy-out options,” says Alexander Trout, area coordinator for resident services at Kansas State University.
Many campuses found themselves quickly having to make amendments to agreements in the housing contract, some of which had already been signed by students. “We created and distributed a revised contract/lease and addendums to further highlight operations and expectations tied to the pandemic including requirements for testing, cooperation with quarantine, and policy changes such as guests,” says John Malsam, associate director of university housing at Colorado State University.
Many campuses found it necessary to assign students to rooms instead of allowing them to select their own spaces, due to the often changing guidelines from local health authorities. “When it came to fall, we placed all incoming students in singles and allowed students that had selected a double during room selection to either request to be in a single or stay with their roommate,” says Koreen Kerfoot, assistant director for residential life at New Mexico Tech. Some campuses had to completely shift who was allowed to even stay on campus. “Our Fall 2020 occupancy was limited to those who were identified as being in need of housing,” says Chris Stone-Sewalish, associate director for administration at Michigan State University. Students in need of housing were frequently those who were housing insecure or international students who had nowhere else to go.
Campuses quickly learned that, with plans for Fall 2020 constantly changing, it was best to offer flexible cancellation policies. Renee Richard-Gonce, director of communications and administration at Louisiana State University, explains that they “allowed students to cancel without penalty through opening day.” As campus plans for course delivery in the fall changed, many campuses did not feel they could justify charging fees for students to cancel their housing contracts. “We had to shift for Fall 2020 to singles when we had planned for double occupancy. This decision was made in August, almost three weeks before opening.” At Bowling Green State University, this ultimately led to the need to offer “money to students to not live on campus,” says Josh Lawrie, director of residence life.
While campuses had to frequently pivot in terms of how they managed residential capacity and assignments for the 2020-21 academic year, most stated that they would resume normal occupancy operations for Fall 2021.
One of the most high-profile times on campus is the fall move-in process. It also likely brought the most “aha!” moments and innovative changes that will last beyond the pandemic. Brian Stroup, director of operations at Oregon State University, describes their process. “In order to minimize the number of people in our buildings and on floors at any particular time, we assigned students a day and time for arrival based on their assigned hall and room. Students then had to go into our online portal and confirm this time. This confirmation had an added bonus of helping us whittle down who was actually planning to attend and move in as information changed rapidly throughout the summer.” They also implemented an express check-in process that was, as Stroup notes, “incredibly well received by students and families. We had everyone check in at our football stadium parking lot, and our staff actually brought keys to the students in their cars. Our marketing team even created some fun promotional materials to allow students to take selfies in their cars as they waited. It worked incredibly well, so we may continue some elements of this in the future.”
A staggered and spread out move-in process was a common change for most campuses. “We decided to go with a week-long move-in with appointments for all of our students and do away with the one day dedicated to freshmen. It was a little strange to shake up our box and what had become so much a part of our tradition,” says Catherine Covar, assistant director of housing and residence life at Lander University. “We set up a tent and had a drive-through check-in with appointment times. We had an amazing experience with the appointments. Everything went so smoothly. So much so that we will likely continue to use this model.”
As COVID-19 was spreading rapidly in August and September of 2020 while campuses were moving students into residential spaces, it was important to create a process that limited interactions with other people. As Trout at Kansas State explains, “Residents utilized their own mobile device to check into the hall when they arrived to campus and were able to approach the desk for keys. (Our key process was already digitized.) This process made the in-person check-in process approximately three minutes per resident for residence hall students.” He confirms that they will keep this change after the pandemic. Malsam describes some of the changes made at Colorado State. “During move-in, we also adjusted building access and designated some hallways, stairwells, and entries as one-direction in an effort to limit congregating. Elevator capacity was also limited. Elevator capacity and some building entries remain limited as a year-long operation.”
Many campuses also took this time to further do away with paper processes. Paper forms for room condition reports and key checkouts were replaced with electronic processes. “We fully transitioned to an electronic room condition report through our housing software. We are now utilizing shared Google sheets to track key sign-outs,” says Ray Gonzalez, business manager for student services at The College of New Jersey.
In order to expedite the check-in process, many campuses allowed students to send packages to campus ahead of move-in. As Christopher Van Drimmelen, scholar housing and residential conferences coordinator at Oregon State University, explains, “When it became apparent that we were going to need to ask students to move in in an hour or less once they reached their building, we started to ask ourselves ‘what can we do to help students cut down move-in time?’ Moving fewer things from a car to a room generally means a faster move-in, so we instituted a policy where if students sent items ahead, and they arrived before a certain date, we would deliver them directly to their assigned room so that their belongings could just be there waiting for the student. This also reduced congestion in our service centers on move-in day. The ‘send-ahead’ process proved to be very popular with students and is something that we’re looking at keeping for future years.” Malsam says that at Colorado State, “We coordinated with some third-party vendors to have listings on our website for students/families who wanted to ship directly to campus and have items pre-placed in the room. All the vendors were vetted to confirm adequate insurance, and an online waiver was required for the student/family to complete.”
Training
RA and professional staff training was almost entirely revamped and branched out into virtual platforms. Shannon Staten, executive director of university housing at Florida State University, says that 90% of her campus’s training for RAs, hall directors, and hall coordinators went virtual. The training sessions were a combination of learning modules and Zoom meetings, and they used the university’s Canvas site to provide easy access to staff. Similar changes happened at the University of Iowa, and Von Stange, assistant vice president for student life and senior director of university housing and dining, says that in the future this training will be more of a hybrid of virtual and face-to-face interactions.
Carol Binzer, director of administrative and support services at Texas A&M University, says that comparable changes were made on her campus. “Residential live-in staff training was reformatted to a virtual environment and utilized e-campus (learning management system) for knowledge content quizzes. Some aspects of the virtual training will remain in place moving forward as it proved suitable to different learning styles as well as accommodating those unable to attend at the prescribed time.” Erica Barton, manager for organizational learning and development within human resources for housing and food services at the University of Washington, takes part of Binzer’s last statement to heart. “As a person with a visual disability, remote work and Zoom meetings have provided me with an incredible new level of access to information my colleagues without visual disabilities have always had. For the first time in my career, I have been able to see colleagues’ PowerPoint slides in real time with my colleagues.” She says that the information sharing that went virtual with products like Zoom the past year has been life changing for her. “I have finally started to feel like I belong.” However, she fears that as institutions return to their new normal they will move away from the supportive components of these products, like closed captions, that bring more information access to more staff.
“Preparing for Fall [2020] move-in required unprecedented amounts of COVID-related signage and communications regarding revised protocols and procedures,” Binzer says. “Hundreds of signs were installed on all exterior doors, inside residential hallways, elevators, common areas, community bathrooms, and floors. Yard signs, sandwich board signs, and digital signs were also produced and continually updated and replaced. When compliance with COVID protocols among residents was challenged, marketing shifted and produced a peer-to-peer campaign, including video production. These and additional COVID-related marketing initiatives continued throughout the academic year.”
Staff at the University of Georgia used their social media presence as well. One of their Social Media Ambassadors (who are students) made a YouTube video of his personal experience in isolation housing, while others posted messages about what to do in the city during the pandemic and gave shout outs to students wearing masks and keeping social distance. Linda Kasper, executive director of university housing, explains that they used their web presence to enhance communication efforts: “For example, our ‘What to Expect’ webpage outlining what to expect during a student’s time in isolation or quarantine, as well as archiving all communications to students during the fall and spring, so families and others could see what communication was being sent to students.” For orientation, they developed virtual 360º-tours and housing webinars and provided opportunities for virtual hall hangouts for incoming students.
While housing showrooms and tours were reduced or suspended, many campuses fulfilled these requests virtually. “While we have had YouTube tours and virtual tours (through admissions), we have begun, on a limited basis, to offer Zoom tours which we may continue in the future as a more interactive method to engage students and families,” says Daniel Rosner, associate director of housing operations at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. “We are planning to evaluate if we are going to continue to offer Zoom tours for students who may not be able to travel so they can explore the space and ask questions in real time (can you open this drawer/cabinet, can I see the space from this place, etc.). We did get some positive feedback, and some of it may depend on how the university may alter recruitment and keep some digital components to it.”
Binzer says their housing tours added virtual presentations too. “In September 2020, a hybrid model was introduced to allow both a virtual experience and an in-person, on-campus experience with limited numbers of tour guests per tour. The reservation process was completely restructured to accommodate these changes, and Student Tour Guides innovated these solutions. The virtual presentation may remain available post-COVID.”
While the need to improvise and change how everything – from how rooms are assigned to how students move into rooms – happened quickly last year, and some would say out of necessity instead of choice, it is clear that many housing professionals are seeing the benefits of some of the changes made during the pandemic for future academic cycles. Change in industry is often a slow process, but when the locus of control is completely beyond you and your staff team, there are truly no bad ideas when trying to make things work. Some of these changes worked; others did not. As we look back on this past year and all that we survived as an association of housing professionals, it will be natural to critique the things that did not work. While self-criticism is natural, we should also be encouraged by all we accomplished to provide a continuity of service for residential students. After witnessing such a whirlwind year, Binzer summed up her feelings this way: “The motto at Texas A&M in residence life is ‘Aggies Live On . . .’ – which means so much more than just where students live; it is how staff live out the mission.”
Kathryn Magura Krieger is the assistant director of operations at Oregon State University in Corvallis. Camille Perlman is the managing editor of Talking Stick at the ACUHO-I Home Office in Columbus, Ohio. Header photo courtesy of Oregon State University. This story will be continued in the September+October 2021 issue of the magazine.
